FORT COLLINS, CO - APRIL 1: In the company's Prototype Innovation Test Lab, test engineer David Wilson performs a drop-test on one of the Defender series cases for the iPhone. The founder of Otter Products, Curt Richardson, returns to the Fort Collins-based mobile-case company as chairman and chief visionary officer as the company demonstrates its new 3D printing technology and other business ventures.

In the Otter Products prototype innovation test lab, engineer David Wilson performs a drop-test on one of the company's Defender series cases for the iPhone. The founder, Curt Richardson, above, has returned to the Fort Collins-based mobile-case company as chairman and chief visionary officer

FORT COLLINS — Curt Richardson’s office at Otter Products looks like a man cave. The walls are muted shades of brown and lined with dark furnishings. A model of the Titanic sits above the cabinet behind his desk, while a mini replica of a World War I airplane hangs from the ceiling. There’s even a cannon, a mountain Howitzer from Europe.

“It’s about innovation,”said Richardson, Otter’s founder who returned to the smartphone case maker last month as its chief visionary officer. “I’m not always going to look for the home run, but I’m looking for a lot of base hits. Like (business consultant) Jim Collins would say, you fire a lot of bullets and when you hit something, that’s when you fire a (cannonball). That’s why there is a cannon over there. That is a real cannon.”

The twinkle-eyed Richardson, 57, who looks more like a distant relative of Santa than a warrior, returned to Otter headquarters on South Meldrum Street after four years. He had stepped away from the company he founded in 1998, though remained chairman. He wanted to put his energy into Blue Ocean Enterprises, which has since incubated all sorts of new ventures from radio frequency research to vodka.

“There were fundamental things that were not functioning as I would have originally intended five years ago when I left,” said Richardson, who took time from a three-day strategy session last week to update The Denver Post. “… For me, the culture had shifted. In my mind, I needed to get those things aligned. In order to do that, I needed to make a full change across the board with leadership. Not that (what they did) was totally wrong. It was just totally different from what I had envisioned and my expectations.”

Richardson promoted Steve Nisbet, who joined Otter in 2010 and led its expansion into Asia, to president to oversee daily operations. He brought in Jim Parke to be Otter’s CEO. Parke is also CEO of Blue Ocean.

Hope is brewing in Fort Collins. And local leaders are watching.

“The buzz among the Otters has been intense and positive. They’re pretty jazzed to have him back,” said David May, CEO of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce. “There have been some really good guys running the company, but they weren’t Curt. Their focus was more on the bottom line whereas Curt is big picture, visionary and he loves the fun and camaraderie of being around bright, capable people. The change is palpable.”

Ottertude

When Kristin Golliher joined Otter Products in January 2005, she was fresh out of college. The company had about 15 employees.

Golliher went on to develop Otter’s marketing and public relations department. As the company grew, Richardson remained accessible, she said. At a trade show one year, he made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the back of the booth.

At its test lab in Fort Collins, the company invested in protection technology by dropping phones continuously from 4 feet, splashing them with sunscreen and olive oil and even tossing metal ball bearings at them to see if the screen would crack.

By the fall of 2011, the company had grown to 500 employees and had expanded to Ireland and Hong Kong. Annual sales reached nearly $350 million, according to the Inc. 5000.

And then Golliher took Otter up on a company perk: life planning. The two-day, off-site program is offered to employees who have been there for more than a year to help them figure out what they really want to do with their life. She realized she wanted to start her own PR firm.

“I went in and told Curt. I was like a little kid, shaking. I told him I was going to start my own business,” said Golliher, who now runs WildRock Public Relations & Marketing in Fort Collins.

Richardson didn’t let her leave empty-handed. Through Blue Ocean, he guided Golliher and invested in her new business.

“I was able to buy out Blue Ocean in two-and-a-half years, which was ahead of my five-year plan,” Golliher said. “For me, it was a really amazing and positive experience. I don’t think I would have had the courage or encouragement (working elsewhere) to make that wild leap. I’m excited to hear that he’s taking a more hand-on approach.”

Similar stories about Richardson abound.

Brandy Hansen, who joined Otter in 2006 as business development executive, can’t say enough about Richardson’s management style.

“What I always admired about Curt and why I think he’s back is if he feels the strategy isn’t going well, he’s not afraid to walk the floor and talk to employees. It’s not always upper management. He’ll get down to the roots of who is doing the work,” said Hansen, who now runs her own consulting firm. “Often times CEOs want to do that and have an open-door policy, but few actually walk the floor to find it.”

Hansen left in 2012 to start a family and Cornerstone Strategic Planning. But she’s in touch with many current Otters who she says are very excited about Richardson’s return.

“What’s hard about Curt is that he’s such a visionary and has such a way of standing up and presenting vision that when he’s not there, it feels like something is missing,” she said. “I’ve not met many people like Curt, who can see what he sees. It’s hard to replace your visionary.”

Succession

Richardson put CEO Brian Thomas in charge in 2012. The company went on to make its acquisitions with Wrapsol, a screen protection technology, in 2012 and LifeProof, a San Diego maker of waterproof cases, a year later. By 2014, chatter began that Otter Products had hired an investment bank to explore a sale of the company. (Richardson said it’s still not for sale. He, his wife, Nancy, and their two sons own 100 percent of Otter.)

During those years, Otter made mostly cosmetic advances, like thinner and fashion-friendly designs, and expanded into tablet protection, plus added a few cases with built-in power.

But Richardson’s absence can be extrapolated from anony mous reviews on Glassdoor, a site for employees to share company experiences. OtterBox has a 2.9 rating out of 5. Many of those posting negative reviews recall a time when things were better. “It was a great place at one time,” said one. Some even mention Richardson by name: “Advice is more directed to Curt and his family. Remove the entire senior leadership team and beg the old team to come back before it’s too late.”

Even as Otter’s revenues rose — to $1 billion in 2014 from $600 million in 2012 — the smartphone market began to go flat. So, too, have sales of mobile cases, according to market researcher The NPD Group.

U.S. sales of smartphone cases? A mere 1.5 percent growth to $2.6 billion between Feb. 2015 to last month, said Ben Arnold, NPD’s industry analyst for consumer technology.

“People are waiting for the (unannounced) iPhone 7,” Arnold said.

Richardson is well aware of that.

“The overall market today is different than it was five years ago. The smartphone market was really growing like crazy. Today, it’s almost in decline. It’s turned into a commodity,” Richardson said. “It’s time to innovate. We were not innovating as a company. It’s time to get back to those innovation roots.”

Richardson is still hammering out the new strategy. But he hinted at some goals: Innovate in new and existing markets, and “expanding beyond cases,” he said. “Absolutely!”

The case market needs more innovation, said Arnold. And that means going beyond accessories like cables and power packs.

“We look at phone cases for protection but there’s prime real estate right next to it. You can add batteries, like Mophie, or make the back of the phone a touch screen,” Arnold said. “I’m sure Otter is looking at those possibilities but to really get consumers looking at your brand and think about phone cases, there’s something to be said about moving beyond protection.”

Otter Products is still a top brand, garnering 26 percent of the dollar share of cases sold for the past 12 months. “That’s the highest share” of any brand, Arnold added.

“There are some pretty decent name brands in the market. But there are a lot of lower-cost brands too and those certainly pose a challenge,” Arnold said. “But brand recognition (like Otter’s) is almost priceless.”

As a leader in the local entrepreneurial community, Richardson is admired for his support.

“We are big fans of Curt,” said Jim Deters, founder of Denver’s Galvanize workspace and technology educator that recently opened a branch in Fort Collins. “I’m not surprised he is taking the helm again. I think it is great news for OtterBox. Curt and Otter has had a tremendous impact on the Fort Collins community and were strategic in bringing Galvanize to Fort Collins.”

Even as Richardson returns, the company has continued to invest in development. It recently invested in a new 3-D printer from Stratasys, which lets designers create realistic prototypes in 30 minutes instead of three days. That helps buyers see a nearly final product — and encourages purchase commitments.

But just as important to Richardson is making sure company culture is a positive thing for all of its 850 employees.

“How we act and how we treat each other is just as important,” Richardson said. “We can have the best strategy in the world but if we don’t have the right culture, it doesn’t matter because it won’t be executed.”

​Tamara Chuang covers personal technology and local tech news for The Denver Post. She loves figuring out how things work and explaining them either through words, graphics or video. Find out how to contact her at dpo.st/tamara

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